“The LORD is good to those who wait for Him,
To the soul who seeks Him.”
Lamentations 3:25
The first week of the New Year has already come and gone, and with it, my first week back at work at Casa Teresa. The Lord has been so good and so faithful to provide for me. If 2008 and 2009 were years that the Lord used to really teach me about trust, then 2010 was the year that He used to teach me even more about patience and waiting on Him. 2010 began with my knowing that the Lord was calling me back home to California from Romania. The timing though was up in the air. So through my waiting on the Lord and seeing how He was going to orchestrate things, He opened the door for me to move back to California in June and to have a job waiting for me 4 days after I returned home. I was in a lot of transition during the first 6 months of the year. Spending some time in California before the decision was made to move home, and then spending time all over Romania, sleeping on floors and in trains as I traveled around to say my goodbyes to the dear friends the Lord had given me during my 2.5 years there. Living out of a suitcase was all I knew during my first 6 months of 2010.
The last 6 months of the year were not much different, I have been sleeping on a blow up mattress on the floor with all my belongings packed away still or in a Rubbermaid set of drawers. After returning home to California I began working at Casa Teresa right away. I knew when I accepted the job there that it was being paid for by a grant that was to run out at the end of September. I also knew that Casa was trying to get another grant so that my position would be able to continue on even after September. So I waited in a way until the end of September to see what was going to happen. Working as unto the Lord as best as I could in the meantime and seeing what would be provided when the time came. Well September came and the money ran out and there were no other grants, so I finished my last day at Casa on September 30th. I was told that they would continue to work on getting the funding to hire me back. I applied for a position at another agency and with all the financial cuts going on in that agency, the position I had applied for plus another position the HR girl wanted me to take over, were no longer available for me either. I remember having SO much peace that if the Lord had closed the door to 2 jobs that He had something else for me and that I just needed to wait.
So I took a much needed month off in October, having had no break between when I moved back from Romania and started working at Casa. The time of rest was refreshing. Then when the end of October came and Casa still had not been able to get the funding needed, I reached out to my temp agency lady and asked her to find me some short term temp jobs, working in offices. I have done temp work in the past and don’t totally mind it. But there were not a lot of temp jobs out there over the November and December holiday months. This is sort of normal and I expected it and had saved money for this situation. All the while though, I kept thinking, that maybe I should just apply for another job, maybe I should just go and work at Target, maybe I’m not doing enough…you know those thoughts in the back of your mind. BUT I truly kept feeling that the Lord was saying WAIT. There would be nights when I would just be crying before the Lord, feeling that my lack of action was effecting other people and that I couldn’t keep “JUST WAITING”. But then He would reveal to me through His Word that He did indeed have for me to continue waiting, and that He knew my needs and that He would supply all that I needed if I waited on Him.
Please don’t get me wrong here, I’m not saying that if you don’t have a job that you should just sit around and do nothing. I don’t think that God works the same way every time and I do believe that if He is telling you to wait on anything, He doesn’t mean just doing nothing. But to be seeking Him continually through prayer and the Word and maybe even fasting. To wait on Him while communing with Him, not by doing nothing. For me, waiting meant communing with Him and doing temp jobs when they came up, but not applying for a full time job. I kept an eye out at jobs on Monster just in case the Lord wanted to bring something across my path, but felt through all of that He was saying to WAIT.
So, I waited and waited, the grants Casa had applied for were being given to others and then the end of December came around and Casa was finding out about another grant they had applied for. Hopes were up at Casa and then they got the news that they did NOT receive the grant. When I heard about this, I decided that 3 months was long enough to wait. That I would let my temp lady know I was ready for a full time permanent or long term temp job. So I called her on a Friday evening and let her know. I have to say that I don’t know if that was totally just ME deciding that 3 months was long enough. I guess I had made the decision honestly without consulting the Lord on His timeframe. I guess I felt I had waited long enough and that was that. Silly me. The weekend came and went and Monday rolled around and guess who called me….why it was Casa Teresa offering me my old job back and at a better pay rate than I had been making 3 months prior.
WOW! So it turns out that God totally blessed Casa by having someone contact them to give them a grant instead of Casa out looking for a grant. Someone actually called and basically said they want to give Casa this grant if they will apply for it. So they applied for it and got it and well….here I am now!
It’s so interesting to me, how the Lord works. How when we think that maybe we have learned all there is to learn about trust and patience and waiting on the Lord that He takes us through something else to deepen our understanding of who He is. Of how faithful He is to us. Of how He provides for our needs and how He knows the path that He has laid out before us and that we need to be faithful and obedient to Him. Seeking Him, spending time with Him and in His Word in order to be close to His heart and to His will.
I am so blessed that the Lord does not just take care of “missionaries” in foreign countries, like He took care of me when I was in Romania….but that He takes care of single girls just trying to serve Him right where they are in Southern California. He knows our needs, He can provide for those needs, whether they be great or small or anything in between.
“Therefore do not worry, saying, ‘What shall we eat?’ or ‘What shall we drink?’ or ‘What shall we wear?’ For after all these things the Gentiles seek. For your heavenly Father knows that you need all these things.”
Matthew 6:31-32
We serve an awesome God who is GREAT, and MIGHTY, and POWERFUL. He is full of mercy and love and grace and compassion. He knows our needs and He promises to provide for them. I am so blessed to be His daughter.
The Lord TRULY is good to those who WAIT on Him!
